Footprints on the Moon
by Mirrordance
Summary: After a mission injures him, Ken spends time in hospital and finds himself helplessly drawn to the room of a dying Brad Crawford…


Author: Mirrordance

Title: "Footprints on the Moon"

Type: one-shot

Warnings: language, angst, death

Spoilers: basically has references to events and people throughout the entire series

Teaser: After a mission injures him, Ken spends time in hospital and finds himself helplessly drawn to the room of a dying Brad Crawford…

Keywords: Ken, Crawford, angst, death

"Footprints on the Moon"

a WK ffic by Mirrordance

don't own anyone…

Ken's P.O.V. …

      They broke both my goddamn legs, if you can believe that.

      Both.

      I couldn't get over it for the longest of times.  I mean, what the hell for, for crying out loud, it was driving me crazy.

      And it hurt!

      Though, I have to admit, not as much now as it had the first time those goons crashed those bats against my legs.  First the right one, then the left.  

      My fault, I got caught.

      My friends, they got to me soon enough…that is, just as the crooks were about to start on my arms.  Thank God for small blessings like that.

      It took some astronomical effort getting into the car, and I slipped from consciousness a few times.  It must have looked real bad, 'cos my friends took me to the nearest hospital they could find, instead of Kritiker's underground one.  Told the folks back there that I got beat up by some of the neighborhood kids.  For stealing someone's girlfriend.  People bought stories like that, so nothing else was asked…

      So I've been told.  I wouldn't know.

      I've been tanked up on drugs for three days, just tanked up on them.  Swimming in this funny space, like making laps in a pool of gelatin.  My legs worked there, and they didn't hurt.

      I woke up a few mornings ago and they gave me so small an amount that I was cross-eyed with the pain.  Wouldn't give me any more.

      Said I'd become an addict.  I told the pretty nurse that's okay, it's too late anyway.  She laughed.  I think I must have too.  I understood after that.  I wouldn't want to be swimming in jelly the rest of my life, just to get away.

      My friends came everyday, bearing…you guessed it.  Flowers.  From them, from the girls back at the shop, the kids, their mothers…I was smothered by the attention.  The legs didn't hurt as much anymore; because of them, and because…  Let's say a great weight has been lifted since the docs said they expected a complete recovery in a few months, with therapy.  I didn't mind waiting.  I've got my legs.  They're going to stay.

      My room was practically brimming with flowers all the time.  Whenever something wilted, it was whisked away and a new batch always took its place.  I loved being around them, as I missed the shop, but the doctors were starting to find it impractical.

      I asked the nurses what I could do with them (that is, apart from returning them to the shop so we could sell it again—tempting, but unfair), and they told me that I could always give some to the patients who don't get any.  It always brightens up someone's day.

      So I said that was cool.  I could do that.

      But I meant it in such a way that I would give them permission to take the flowers and bring them to the rooms themselves.

      Instead, with a gleam in their eyes, they gave me a wheelchair.

      Someone always carted me around, to and from the bathroom, to and from therapy.  I looked at them dubiously, then just shrugged.  What the hell.  It was going to be an adventure.

      And besides, I got to run over their feet in revenge, and disguise it by saying I was just learning, sorry, didn't mean it.

      Visiting hours were nine to five, except for the really sad ones over at the I.C.U.  So, while I was bored to death, I was kind of glad that my friends weren't allowed to come after that time.

      That was when, bored as I was, I did my…ahem, what I've come to call as "Santa Clausing."

      I saw no reason for their Santa Clause to have to wait 'til Christmas, two months from now.  They needed the cheer, so I was going to share some of those my friends gave to me.

      Each night, when the patients were asleep, I'd take some of the flowers in my room (after removing the cards and keeping them, of course) and cart them around over my lap in my sleigh/wheelchair.  

      No one stops my nighttime 'strolls.'  The nurses let me do pretty much everything that I wanted; I had picked up a thing or two from Yoji Kudo, professional playboy.  As for the male nurses…well, I got my therapist into talking them into letting me 'practice' anytime I wanted.  My therapist was a six-footer, an Amazon woman with brains and killer beauty.  THEY let HER do pretty much everything she wanted.    

      So I did push doors open, look into sleeping patients and place bouquets on their night tables.  The nurses told me which of them had allergies, so I steered clear of those, lest I make them even more sick, and me into more trouble.

      I always woke up feeling satisfied.  And maybe it was just me, but each morning as I made my way around the hospital, there were more smiles.

      So I went on that way every night, sneaking around, placing flowers here and there, trying to make sure everyone got a set.

      It took me about a week to get two floors above me, just beneath the dreaded I.C.U floor, where I wasn't allowed anyway.  That was where, I saw him.

      As was routine, I snuck inside—by now, I had mastered the squeaky doors and the squeaky floors and dodging the machinery in the dimly lit rooms.  

      I placed the bouquet on his night table.  There was a pair of glasses there, and some pages torn from a book.  I glanced at them, and it was a short story by a certain S.N. Dyer, with a funny name.  "Nostalginauts."  

      I smirked a bit, and looked at the sleeping patient, as if we had just shared a joke.  What I found there, I couldn't believe.

      It wasn't very bright, but the moonlight that seeped through the blinds showed me a face I wasn't allowed to forget.

      Schwarz.  

      The face, gaunt as it was now, couldn't have belonged to anyone else but the dark-haired man in the sharp white suit.  The one who always sparred with Ran.

      Brad Crawford.

      Seeing him again brought me a sense of danger.  He was asleep, we were both in no shape to fight, but still.  Old impulses died hard.

      I stayed there for a few moments, not wanting to breathe or move, lest I awaken him.

      Dimly, I wondered if his friends ever came to visit him.  And what they brought with them.  His empty room screamed with answers I was loathe to take.  They might be different from us, but I couldn't accept that they denied each other human companionship.

      I clenched my fists, and made a quick exit.

      I breathed in relief when I finally shut his door behind me.

      I looked at my lap, found no more flowers there.  

      My rounds for tonight were over.

      Which was fine, it was perfect.  I was suddenly feeling particularly tired.

      Ran walked in in the middle of a Teletubbies rerun.

      I was starting to really, really, really hate daytime television.

      He had a tentative, hesitant smile on his face.  After all these years, it was still all that he could offer, but I didn't mind.  I noticed, but I didn't mind.  There was almost a shyness there.  He could never get back to the old Ran, no matter how safe Aya-chan was now, no matter how long it has been since he'd lost his parents.  If I was angry at Takatori about anything, it's not because he was selfish or greedy.  Just that…he had stolen our youth, our dreams.  There are just some things you couldn't take back.

      "Hey!" I greeted, and he laid down a bouquet of gentians on my night table.  The room was more spacious now, of course, which he couldn't help but notice.  He noticed, but he didn't mind.  Though his eyes asked.

      "I'll tell you when I get home," I told him brightly, as I switched off the television through the remote control.

      "Do they still hurt?" he asked.

      "Not so much, Oh-Gracious-Leader-One" I told him, nodding to the wheelchair on the corner of the room.  "My arms hurt though.  I've been going around"

      "So I've heard," he says wryly, and I knew then that he knew what I've been doing.  Well, well.  He's always been subtle.

      As it was, Ran is almost useless in casual conversation.  He sat at the edge of my bed, looking serene and unrepentant about it.  I liked him, though.  Always have, even after we exchanged punches that first time.  I was comfortable with his silence.  I never felt obliged to say anything.

      The formalities over, I turned the TV on again.  The two of us sat through a Princess Sarah rerun.  It's one of those old anime.  Ran snorted once in awhile at some funny line.  I'd glance at him each time, enjoying his company, even if he didn't really do anything.

      God, I wished I were home.

      He left soon afterwards, and I don't know why I kept the sick Schwarz man from him.

      I did my rounds, as I always did.

      And the many nights eventually led me into that room again.  

      Bearing my gift, I hesitated by the door.  Is he awake? Would he lunge at me and kill me this time? Shouldn't I just skip him?

      But the recollection of his stale room told me that somehow, someway, maybe he was just as lonely as the others.  And besides, I courted death frequently enough, to save lives.  I should be comfortable with giving just as much to save…save…his soul? It was ridiculous.  How could my flowers save his soul? I'm beginning to be a little self-possessed here--

      Cautiously, trying hard to think of this room's occupant as a normal human being, I blocked all the hesitations away and carted myself into his room, wanting to be in and out as quickly as possible.

      I placed the flowers on the table, then headed for the door, my hand reaching for the knob…

      Just as he said,

      "Wait."

      And, stupid me, I did.

      It was dark in his room, with only shafts of moonlight finding its way from the world outside to the place within.  I knew he had a light switch by the bed, as all the rooms did, but for some reason he wasn't turning it on.  I turned to face him, but stayed amidst the shadows.

      "I knew you would come," he said, voice surprisingly clear and strong, late as it was.  "Just as I knew you would come the night before"

      I searched my brain for what to say.

      "Yeah, so?"  
      It wasn't the smartest thing, but, well…I wasn't very sharp with words.

      He wouldn't say thank you.  I knew he wasn't going to say it, but still, I waited for it and received…nothing.  No, not nothing.  Something else.

      "Your friends are going on a mission tomorrow," he said, "don't let the tall one with the wire go.  There's a bullet with his name on it"

      I blinked in the dark, wanting to see his face, to see the truth in them.  Or the lies.  I think I must have been looking for the lies.  

      "How do I know you're—"

      "That's it," he said, cutting me off as he settled back down in his bed, "you don't.  Not until it's too late"

      I breathed through my teeth, thinking, thinking.  What do I have to lose for making Yoji miss the mission tomorrow, versus what I might retain? 

      I wouldn't say thank you either.

      "Good night," I said, heading out his door.

      If he was right, no one would ever know.

      But I did feel grateful for his having said anything at all.

      I got Yoji to go out with my irresistible physical therapist.  Of course, he didn't concede that easily; Yoji changed, after all.  But I begged and groveled and pushed for all the times I covered for him at the shop and all the favors he owed me.

      He wasn't stupid; he could tell I was up to something.  But like with Ran, I kept Crawford from him also.

      Instead, I said I got into a fix with my P.T. and had to divert her attention to another male um… 'target' before things between us got uncomfortable.

      Yoji finally succumbed, Ran was irritated but bit his tongue, and he and Omi did the job, emerging with not even a single scratch between them.  Yoji will see my P.T. again next week.  Makes a guy wonder.

      But as I said, I did feel grateful.

      So I found myself one bright morning, bearing flowers again and heading for his room, this time no longer cowering in the protection of the shadows or my pseudo-self, Santa Clause.

      I was…Ken Hidaka, grateful.

      But still unwilling to say thank you, because he hadn't.

      I found him awake, sitting up and looking at me as if he knew I was coming, which was probably actually the truth.

      I tossed him the bouquet, which he caught cleanly.  The last bouquet I delivered here stood where I had left it.  I wondered if he meant it to stay that way, or if he just didn't bother to acknowledge it at all.

      I drove myself to his bedside, and he watched me curiously.

      "What happened to you?" he asked, surprising me.

      "Don't you know?" I sneered.  It's always as if he knew everything, so why not this?  
      "No," he replied, looking at me strangely.  "What the hell did you think?"  
      I waved the issue away.  "Mission.  Got caught.  They wanted to know a few things, and have some fun with defenseless little me"

      He tsked and shook his head in disapproval.  

      "Hypocrite," I scolded, "last time I checked, you and your slithering little friends wanted to do much, much worse"  
      "At least WE had finesse"

      I snorted, even as I wondered if he had meant to be funny at all in the first place.

      "What happened to you?" I asked him back, after a momentary silence that I found I couldn't really stand.

      An ironic brow is raised.  

      "Don't you know?" he asked me back.

      I was going to snap at him again, but I suddenly realized he was right.  I was in this particular floor, in this particular wing.  I really should have known.

      Cancer.

      "Where?" I asked him.

      "Everywhere," he replied cryptically.

      "You have…hair," I pointed out stupidly.  This really wasn't fair at all.  I'm not a whiz at mind games, and I had a feeling he was an old-hand at it.

      "They quit on me," he said flatly.

      And I knew what he meant by that too.  No more treatments.  Just…waiting.

      I gulped, suddenly uncomfortable.  I've never met many dying guys before.  I've had a hand in bringing other people into that state, of course, but for a familiar face to have to go through it…it was like losing a friend, even if he was an enemy.  Does that make sense? I know so little people in this world, it's a shame for yet another one to die out on me, even if we used to fight each other.

      He crossed his arms over his chest.  This time, waiting for me.

      "Enjoy your flowers," I told him with as much a smile as I could muster, as I headed for the door.  I felt like such a moron, never saying the right things.

      I left him, feeling confused and wondering if he was as bothered about this whole thing as I was.  No, I was wishing it, actually.

      There was a tentative truce in that room.  It was isolated from the pains and the anger of the rest of the world, eaten up by the pains of the one within.

      I didn't want to be any part of it, but I fear it may have already become a part of me.

      It was a particularly grueling day of therapy.

      I was sore, and I felt like mush as my nurse carted me off like sagging luggage towards my room.  Of all people, I found him there, sitting by my bed and looking perfectly content.

      The nurse left us alone, and I sighed at him.  More tired than confused, more irritated than cautious.  I just wanted my bed, damn it.

      "What?" I asked, exasperated.

      "I looked into the future and saw that there would be something going on between us," he said, "no matter which path either of us will take.  So I thought I'd knock myself out and concede"

      I snorted at him.  "No matter which path any of us take? You're sure?"  
      "Yes," he added quickly, "I'm not pleased with this either"

      "You know what?" I asked him, yawning, "Bug off.  I'm going to sleep"

      He got to his feet, offered me a shoulder I was NOT willing to take.

      "Help you to bed," he said.

      "No…" I said cautiously.

      "What?" he sneered, "you're going to sleep in that chair?"  
      Damn that nurse for leaving me here like this.

      "You know it's no use to call her back," he urged, slinging one of my limp arms over his shoulders, "now just help me out here, I'm not like I used to be"  
      I pulled my arm away.  "Nope.  Stop.  I don't want to have to owe you anything"  
      "You won't," he argued, "this'll even the score"  
      "There isn't any score," I insisted.

      "You brought flowers to my room," he enumerated, "I returned the favor and told you about your friend.  Then you brought me flowers again.  That makes it…two to one.  I don't want to owe you anything either—"

      "You know what?" I cut him off, as I was falling asleep already, and he was going around in funny hoops of incomprehensible conversation, "shut up.  Lift me up to bed, I'm going to sleep"

      He did as I had told him, grunting a bit with the effort.

      "It's the cast," I told him sheepishly, "adds up what feels like twenty pounds or something"  
      "No, you're getting bloated sitting around in here," he said, heading for the door.

      This sensible part of my brain wished I wouldn't have to see him again.  But then there was also something else in there that I couldn't name.

      Morning after a mission.

      I knew it, even as I wasn't told of anything by my friends.  That's because they hadn't come today, and at least one of them came to visit me everyday.

      Maybe they were tired, got up late, something.  I don't know.  

      But maybe they were hurt.

      Maybe one of them was dead and I just…couldn't know.

      I tried the phone, but no one was answering.

      Like a crazed man, I headed down in my wheelchair, dodging frantic feet as I rolled up and down the emergency area, thinking maybe they were there.  Passed by rooms, peeking at unfamiliar faces dreading I would find one of them each time.

      Then I came to his room again, and I knew that if anyone could give me the answer, it would be him.

      He looked at me, and I could tell from his eyes that he knew what I wanted.  And that there would be a price.

      I rolled myself into his room, noting that the first flowers were still where I had left them; even as they rot, they were graceful.  They were joined by the second set, right there upon his night table, by the glasses and "Nostalginauts."

      "What's that all about?" I asked, nodding to the loose papers, anchored by his glasses.  

      "It's a short story," he said, ever willing to indulge me even as we both knew I wanted something entirely different from a conversation with him.  "Years and years into the future, time machines are commercially used, but there's a catch: you can only go twenty-five years into the past, and for half a minute"

      "What good does that do?" I asked, wrinkling my nose.

      He shrugged, "I don't know.  Tell your past self what you'll become"

      "And what?" I asked.  I mean really, what was the point?  
      He looked at me in this measuring way, as if considering.

      "What?" I asked testily.  Do I really need this now?  
      "Yes," he said, as if confirming some thought in his head, "it wouldn't be you at all to want to know ahead of time what would come out of your life.  And here I was just thinking I couldn't live without that foreknowledge"

      I waved the issue away with my hand.  "You wouldn't know me at all, buddy.  But you do know something I would want to find out"

      He sighed.  "Your friends are doing well.  There was a mission last night and it ended late.  Tsukiyono got stuck with the concluding reports and the other two mopped up.  No one was awake to answer the phone.  I could have told you what would happen two days ago!"  
      I rubbed my hands across my face.  Good, good.  This was just great.

      "Must be some useful skill," I said neutrally.

      He shrugged.  "Has its perks"

      "And drawbacks?" I asked, genuinely curious.

      "Of course"  
      "You always knew you'd die this way?" I asked bluntly.

      "Yes," he replied wryly, "though I did try to find other ways.  I convinced myself for awhile that Abyssinian would be the one.  It might have been a whole lot better for me." He shifted in bed.  "Well.  That makes us three to two.  I say you're the one who owes me now"

      "It's unfair," I argued, "you have the powers.  It's so much easier for you"  
      "There are things," he said thoughtfully, "that you have that I don't either"

      I had to agree.  To not have my friends visit for a single morning drove me crazy.  To not have their flowers at night would bore me.  To not have anything but knowledge of a lonelier future…would kill me.

      "Fine," I said, "what do you want?"  
      He bit his lip, as if he was thinking though I knew that he was already aware of what he wanted.

      "We stop dodging," he said finally, "I want you to share a meal with me everyday.  Any meal, as long as there would be one each day"  
      I frowned.  "Why the hell does it have to be me?"  
      "I got this feeling we understand each other"

      The idea, true as it was, gave me goose-bumps.  But damned if he was wrong.  And I didn't have to hide what I really was to him and vice-versa, so there was some kind of kinship there.  Some kind, whatever that was.

      "No," I insisted, but making this deal with myself that if he asked again, that's an indication of how lonely he was, so I'd have to say yes.  I don't like being lonely.  And I don't want his ghost haunting me the rest of my life just 'cos I wouldn't spend that short time with him.

      "Would you just agree?" he asked irritably.

      I rolled back my eyes.  Did I expect him to beg?

      "Fine," I said.

      "Fine," he said.

      "What do we do now?" I asked.

      The nurse came in, bearing two trays.

      "Breakfast," she said brightly.

      Of course, the Schwarz man knew everything all along, and must have told the innocent-looking nurse.

      Lunch the next day.

      We couldn't have had breakfast together, as Omi dropped by before heading for school.

      The meeting place was my room this time, as my legs felt particularly sore; they lessened the drugs again, as I came closer and closer to being healed.

      He popped into my room, scant moments after Omi vacated it.  I knew he did that to annoy me, panic me a little, though I knew by now that he knew exactly what he was doing.

      He looked thin in his terry cloth robe, as if he was swimming in it.  I never thought of him before as anything other than imposing.  I started to ponder the wisdom of letting him walk around, this dead man.

      "How's the invalid?" he asked.  There seemed to be this permanent satirical edge between the two of us.

      "Not so bad," I answer as he sits on the chair by my bed.

      "Your friend just left," he said, "what did he have to say?"  
      "Just that the kids I coach have been badgering them, asking for me" I couldn't help the smile that spread across my face as I said that.  It was nice to be missed.

      I cut off the smile before he mistook it for gloating.  

      Yoji bought me a Simpsons chess set, which he left with a bunch of nurses to give to me, after he chatted them up and lost track of time, therefore no longer allowed to come up and see me.  

      Carrying the box over my legs, I wheeled myself off to Crawford's room for dinner.  My legs felt a whole lot better, so though we already had our meal for the day, I was willing to do this thing for him too, 'cos I was in a spanking good mood.

      I froze by his door.

      God.

      I hadn't expected to see this at all.

      He was curled up on his side, eyes vacant and in pain all at once, this strange combination.  There was a nurse who drew out a needle from his arm, after jacking him up with painkillers.  She sent me a tentative smile as she walked away.

      I hesitated over my wheels, thinking I should leave too.

      Then got this weird impression maybe those funny eyes were begging.  Or maybe that was my guilt, eating at me.  I didn't want those eyes to see me turn my back on them.

      So I rolled towards him, stopped by the bed.  I placed the Simpsons down on the table, my hands brushing the ambushed pages of "Nostalginauts."

      I once noticed that the pages have been torn from a pocketbook.  But now I saw that they were yellowed too, with age and use.  I picked them up, deciding there was nothing else for me to do anyway.  Playing chess alone was darn sad.  I surely didn't want to stare off and do nothing.  And though he might not even remember any of this tomorrow, I don't want to have to leave him alone this way.

      The story is told from the point of view of a cynical female teenager.  No name, at least not from the first few parts that I read.

      Her friend, this geeky aloof guy named Gar was asking her to the prom along the steps of a library.  Not that he was particularly interested in her, just that the two of them were comfortable with each other.  As a matter of fact, the narrator referred to the two of them as 'dateless losers.'

      There was a wedding going on across the street, and the two of them were looking for time travelers.  A lot of the wedding guests were doing the same thing.  It was like, a surefire way of knowing if a marriage was successful, if the future couple show up after twenty-five years of living together.

      And they did.  As Crawford said, thirty-second appearance.  Makes the crowd go wild.

      The narrator and Gar shake on their agreement to go to the prom together.

      I looked up from the pages to find his eyes closed.

      I put the papers down where I got them, thinking I had a lot of time to finish them later.

      The next morning I had my therapy again, and Miss Amazon Woman P.T. is turning into an ugly scrooge.  Yes, it was that difficult today.

      I get the cast on my right leg off next week; apparently, the morons who worked on me got more gusto as they worked on my other leg.  Nevertheless, feeling like jelly again, I was carted off to my room, where lunch, and Yoji, was waiting.

      He was eating a big, greasy cheeseburger to my utter dismay.  Said he'd give me some too, but didn't want to disrupt my hospital habits.  I told him that was just cruel.

      I ate my hospital food as he finished his burger, savoring every bite of it, and every moment of my genuine envy.

      Just as he was about to leave, he gave me a paper bag of soggy fries and a Big Mac that he had been hiding in a corner of his chair.  Said he just didn't want to see the food already brought to my room go to waste, but I could eat this later.

      You gotta love the guy.

      I wheeled myself into Schwarz territory, still bearing the chess set.

      He was sitting up in bed, with a tentative smile on his face.  It looked…different on him.  Weird.  Nothing like those old smug smiles.  Weird.  Weird, is all I can say.  Maybe he did remember some things about yesterday after all.

      "Where did you stop in the story?" he asked.

      Bingo.

      "They just agreed to go to the prom together," I replied.

      "Didn't get very far into it," he said distastefully.

      I rolled back my eyes.  What did this guy want from me?

      It was that kind of disease.

      Some days, it gets at you gradually.  Other days it hits you with a nuclear strike force that turns your world inside out, and his eyes would lose that intelligent gleam, just be this near-vacant space a window not to the soul, but into his anguish.

      I walked into his room another time, seeing him again that way.

      And as I did before, I settled in with his story to see what would happen next, and read on until his eyes closed so they wouldn't see me leave.

      The narrator and Gar are talking about the time travelers, these 'nostalginauts' who appear on reunions and special occasions.  The narrator says it's a profoundly stupid invention, while Gar insists it is useful and is absolutely convinced that he would be the one to invent it.  

      "But it is important," Gar kept saying.  "It means Time is quantized…"

      Time, as some numerical value that could be brought back, brought forward.  It kind of makes you think, makes you feel kind of lonely.  It lessens the relevance of the present, I think, to be aware of the future.

      No wonder the pre-cog was making this his little bible.

      So anyway, a bunch of kids stop by the Taco Bell table and tease the geeks about being such losers.  When the kids leave, they resume their library staircase conversation.

      The narrator wants to know why Gar wants to go to the prom so much, when he wasn't really the school spirit type.  He says he might be some important guy someday, so this could be a big night for him.

      She says nothing to make his ego bigger, but does not back out on their deal.

      Crawford's eyes are closed again, and I decide to leave.

      Another meal.

      I came to his room now, always, without question.

      I grew stronger as he grew weaker.  This place was a paradox, this bridge in between death and life and…whatever.  

      I had this distinct feeling we were running out of time.

      He asked me again where I stopped in the book, and I answered.  He said he'd make a reader out of me yet, and I told him no one could do that.

      "You know," he says as he munches thoughtfully on his food, "they got this hospice person waiting on me now, whenever you're not around"

      "Hospice person?" I ask.

      He shrugs.  "This person who sits around, waiting for you to die.  Not really to do anything, because nothing is s'posed to be done, right? Just to…I don't know.  Check out the time or something like that"

      "What's he like?" I ask.

      "She," he corrected, "this old, gracious lady.  But she should acquire some tact"  
      "Why's that?" I ask.

      "I woke up this morning to find her reading 'Tuesdays with Morrie.'" He replies, with a smile playing on his lips at the humorous situation I failed to understand.

      "I don't get it," I admitted.

      He sighed.  "The sun has fried your brain.  You really got to pick up a book once in awhile.  It's an international bestseller.  A story about this successful guy who returns to have one last life lesson with his old college professor who is dying"

      I looked at him blankly, knowing that playing the all-knowing gave him a sense of satisfaction.

      "All right fine," he said, sounding exasperated.  "I woke up the other day too, and she was reading a book called 'I Want To Live.'"

      I swallowed my laugh.  "Well…um…you know.  People who work in this field, maybe they just got used to stuff like that.  It makes them…um…more…um…"

      "Excited?" he filled in.

      "I wouldn't have said it that way," I said quickly.  But I wouldn't have figured out any other fitting word either.

      Another meal.

      They had moved him to another room, one floor up to the dreaded I.C.U. after a particularly bad night.  He sat there in bed wearing a smirk and fifty million machines standing guard, flanking him uselessly.

      He thought it was funny.  The folks move you up here to the highest floor.  When you're dead you go to the basement, the morgue.  Then to the ground, six-feet under.

      I asked him if he was afraid.

      Of course he said no.

      He asked me if I was afraid.  About him dying, or my own mortality, I wasn't sure.

      Either way, of course I said no.

      And of course, we both lied.

      I asked him if he foresaw the exact time he would go.

      He said he didn't want to look.

      Bad night.

      There was more and more of them lately, and if Crawford claimed he didn't know when the time would be, I for one knew that it was going to be close.

      The answers were breathing down my neck in this damn room.

      I told the hospice lady I'd give her a break, but glanced at her book as she sauntered off to wherever it was she went when she wasn't on death-watch.

      I sat by his bed, and for once the pained eyes looked me straight, and his mouth formed words that I leaned to hear.

      "When will you stop doing me favors?" he asked.

      I told him, when you lose count.

      That was what it was all about.

      I picked up the papers, when his eyes lost focus again.

      The narrator was telling her mom that she was going to the prom.  The mom is alarmed.  They have a bitter relationship, and for once the mother feels a tie with her daughter, and is excited for her.  But the narrator blows her bubble.  The relationship seems beyond repair.

      "You know what I hope?" the mother said, "I hope you show up at the prom—your future self, I mean—and I hope you tell yourself what a mess you're going to make of your life.  I hope to God you straighten out."

      "I wouldn't do that," the narrator muttered, "I wouldn't do anything so—so ordinary"

      His eyes had closed now, as he fell asleep.

      Tomorrow morning, I'd ask him what he would say to his past self, if he could go back.

      Breakfast.

      I felt like I had just been here.

      He was awake, slumped in his pillows.

      I asked him the question that was on my mind, and he told me that if he could go back, he'd tell his past self that 'Brad, sure, go do stupid things.  It'll be right in the end.  That's going to be the only right, but at least you know you got one.'

      I asked him, what did you do that was so right?  
      He told me he wasn't going to say, because I didn't like knowing the future anyway.

      I asked him if he could see beyond his death?  
      He laughed and told me I was going to cry.

      I stuck my tongue out at him, this pig-headed loser.

      Then he told me no one could look that far.

      Night.

      It was heavy with the feeling of…conclusion.

      He was feeling intense pain, and I sat by his side, helpless.  He was alert, so I thought maybe it was impolite to pick up his papers and see what happens next.

      "I've…never come…this close…before" he told me, gasping.

      To death.  I knew what he meant.

      "Look at it this way," I told him, hearing my smile as much as I heard the tears lodged in my throat.

      "At least you wouldn't come this way again," I said, and he chuckled.  Told me I ought to join his hospice woman.

      Then he said Thank You.

      I couldn't believe it.  Now I knew he was dying for sure.

      I asked him if he would have done for me what I did for him, given reversed situations.

      He asked me why I asked questions when I didn't want to hear the answers.  He says I do that all the time.

      I told him, because it completes me.

      He dodges my question cleanly, and says that life is a pretty interesting state of being.  I was going to pursue the issue, but then he grabs my attention by saying that he lied to me about something.

      Of course, I asked him what that was.

      He says, "Do you remember when I came into your room saying it was inevitable that there would be something going on between us?"

      Yes, I said.  Sure, I did.  It wasn't THAT long ago, though it felt that way, with the pace things has been going on around here.

      And he says, "Do you remember that time I asked you to eat with me a meal a day, and you asked why the hell it had to be you?"  
      Yes.  I remember that too, I say.

      "Well," he says, "I'll tell you why now"

      Feel damn free, I tell him.

      "That first night you came into my room, I knew you would," he said, grunting a bit at the effort, "but I wasn't sure if you would come back.  You would've been all right, even if you didn't.  So I laid bets in my head of which future you'd end up choosing.  You came back.  I was wrong.  That was why"

      He closed his eyes one last time.

      They said he fell into a coma.

      I did join his hospice woman.  She read 'Tuesdays with Morrie' just as I finished 'The Nostalginauts.'  We sat side by side.  It would have looked ridiculous.

      The letters faded once in awhile, whenever I couldn't detach myself from reality and ended up thinking, once again, of him.

      But the narrator and Gar did end up going to the prom, where tons of Nostalginauts appeared to show their past selves of how successful they've become, bearing pictures and things to be seen in thirty seconds.  The teachers sneer at the narrator, saying maybe her future self was dead or did not have enough means to afford a return to the past.

      The narrator thinks, 'I couldn't imagine anything worse than knowing where you were going to live, how many kids you'd have.  It would be like trying to read an Agatha Christie when you've already snuck a look at the last chapter.'  

      The two are named prom king and queen as the night wears on.

      The pies start flying at them, and Gar spurts out insults to his tormentors.  "…I'm going to be important," he says, " …you'll only be remembered as the assholes who made fun of me, like the ones who laughed at Darwin and suppressed Galileo…"

      And he was right.  The audience doubled with the appearance of the future Gar, and his intellectual buddies who laughed at the people who made fun of Gar.

      The narrator laughs at the event, and makes her way out to the parking lot, already pleased with her shot at immortality as Gar's date.  That's when her future self appears.

      "No pictures," she moaned.

      And her future self flashes a sign at her before winking away, back to her future.

      It hasn't been dull, the sign read.

      It hasn't been dull.

      And the narrator thinks, 'Cool.  I can live with that.'

      I looked up at the sleeping Schwarz man.

      The story has ended.

      He was in a coma for three days.

      Omi, Ran and Yoji stopped by during that time, and one of the nurses directed them off to the I.C.U., where I had been on a vigil of…of…where I had been waiting.

      They looked at the face, recognized it.

      There was confusion in those eyes.  Then anger.

      I told them, I couldn't help it.  I told them to look at the Schwarz man.  This Crawford guy.  Did I ever call him by name at all? Did he ever call me by mine? But what's in a name? What we had between us had no care for the past, nor the future.  Just…what was there.

      It hasn't been dull at all, has it?

      It's like the bottom-line.  There'll be good things and bad things, but…we live.  Not everyone can say that, could they?  
      "Look at his face," I insisted.  It was gaunt, but there was peace there.  

      "If it isn't too late for him, it can't too late for us"

      I hadn't cried in those three days when he had fallen into a coma.  I've successfully avoided it for that time, though at the end of it I feared as if I wouldn't ever be able to stop.

      But I made sure he was dead before I did.  I was afraid he'd see me, and be right.  Again.

      So, the four of us, Weiss, that is, ended up burying one of our enemies.  Not in the usual way, of course.  Literally, this time.  We gave him a proper funeral, brought the flowers too.  Then each had a turn at the shovel, to put some dirt in.

      It was a deceptively sunny day.  It was a pretty, pretty day.  The cast on my left leg itched.  I couldn't believe something like that was bothering me at a time like this.

      Schwarz came, what was left of them.  Until now we weren't even sure if they were alive.

      They stood by, we stood by,  

      They walked away, we walked away.

      I wondered why in hell they came now, when Crawford couldn't…couldn't…use it? See it? Appreciate it?

      Anyway, they came.  We came.  None of us did anything.

      We haven't seen each other in years, and maybe this really would end here.

      I asked Crawford what right it was he thinks he's done.

      He says I'll find it out, and I'm wondering if this was it.

      But then he also said he couldn't see after his death.

      But then we were both liars.  He was just the better one.

      Looking back, I'm wondering which place in myself I'm going to keep the memories of the time I had known my enemy, who in death, actually taught me about life and…another irony, friendship.  Dare I say that? About what we had?

      I'm feeling misplaced.

      But it hasn't been dull.

      I think maybe I learned a few things.

THE END

November 28, 2000

NOTES…

      Has it? Been dull, I mean? I'm sorry! I got into reading "Tuesdays with Morrie" and got into this mood.  That's one great book, by Mitch Albom.  Infinitely better than my story, so don't get discouraged!  And "Nostalginauts" is a great short story by S.N. Dyer.  I have a feeling I might not have done it justice with my synopses, but please grab a copy of "Year's Best SF 3" edited by David G. Hartwell, because that is where I read it.  'I Want to Live' is by Lurlene McDaniel.  A young-adult novel, also very good.

      Second, sorry about misplaced characterizations.  I never know if I do it right.  Sorry if it was boring or what.  I enjoyed writing it anyway.  I've only tried to do Schwarz one other time, in "Dead Waters" but nothing like this.  Brad Crawford is the pre-cog, right? I couldn't have gotten something that big that much wrong, COULD I?

      As is probably obvious by now to the folks who have read my fics, my favorite is Ken.  I think he's cute and such a sweetie.

      I hope you end this feeling disturbed, 'cos I do! I mean, where really do you place a memory like that, given similar circumstances?

      Lastly, the title came from a poem I wrote last month, a long time before the story was ever conceived in my head.  It's really long, but the phrase came from the following…um…do you call them stanzas? I'm not very technical.  Anyway:

'There's a photograph of you embedded in the terrains of the Earth  

It's a beauty that is artless and nearly eternal; 

      like footprints on the moon,

      Where no air could ever stir them.

But you had left yours in a dusty clearing.

The marks led to the darkened woods, 

      and these are all that I have left of you.

For you walked too fast and too far for me to follow.

You are gone.

I have, and am, lost.'

      It basically means someone has left a permanent mark on your heart in an isolated place, otherworldly and untouched by elements, ready to remain forever.  

      Like a strange memory.

      This story was written in three days.  I took a break from the stagnated "Dead Waters (sorry, couldn't resist)" and my fuzzy brain came up with this.  When I got this thing in my head, I just couldn't stop! 

      Anyway, sorry again for the madness!

      By the by, I really would appreciate c&c's.  This one is one of my weirder stuff (I know, I know, everything I do is weird, but this is particularly weird.)

      The original storyline went like this: On a particularly difficult night of memories, Yoji goes out drunk in his car and gets caught by the cops, sentenced to hours of community service.  He spends the time in a hospice caring for dying people, one of whom is a man his age whom he befriends, and asks him to marry his pregnant wife when he dies.  So it's a love story.

      Next thing I know, this maggot in my head says, no, change your mind.  And one thing led to another, suddenly Birman is the one who gives Weiss their assignments (in my fics, it's always, always Manx).  Nothing else odd is noticed.  Ran gets injured during a mission, and spends time in hospital where he finds Manx, terminally ill.  She looks at him as the face of death, always thinking he was sent by Kritiker to kill her, should she spill their secrets in a moment of agony.  Then they get to know each other more.  Another love story, and an undoubtedly sad one.  

      Then the same maggot changes its mind again and one thing led to another.

      Now the leading guy is Ken, and he gets his handful with a member from Schwarz.  

      Anyway, if you have any questions, if I left any holes or what, please contact me.  Sorry again about the mess and the maggots in my head!!!

        
      


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